Category: Cultural Intelligence

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NIGHTWATCH Essay: Youth, Democracy, & the West

Advanced Cyber/IO, Autonomous Internet, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence

NightWatch Essay: Some time ago, David Goldman, purporting to channel Oswald Spengler for Asia Times Online, wrote a farsighted essay [And Spengler is…] that anticipated, predicted and warned that modern impulses in the youth of the Middle East would rise up against conservative institutions to assert a modern definition of being Arab, Berber, Turk, Persian as well as Muslim. He identified the cohorts under 25 as the driving force in these pan-regional impulses.

The events that began in December 2010 in Tunisia seem to have validated parts of Goldman's prophecy. He foresaw the struggle as one between modern educated youth and the conservative, sclerotic Islamic clerisy of mullahs and ayatollahs. In the essay, Spengler did not anticipate an intermediate phase in which the cohorts of modernization battled the stodgy pan Arab socialist authoritarian strong men.

Few prophets live long enough to see even part of their vision come to pass, as has Goldman's in 2011. However, the youth that started the pro-democracy movement lack the experience and shrewdness to plan well. Still, they have spoken the language of human rights, individual worth and elected, accountable government. The words should have been a rallying call to the Western democracies.

Those states that have the maturity and wisdom to help guide the Arab pro-democracy movement are the great western democracies, who else. But, the great democracies in North America and Europe have dithered. President Reagan's beacon on a hill has not shined its light on the Arabs.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Essay: Youth, Democracy, & the West”

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Army Runs PSYOP on US Senators….

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Secrets, Military
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

Another blockbuster by Rolling Stone raises a basic question of just who the military views as the real enemy — the threat posed by the Taliban or the threat to its money flow posed by Congress and the American people.

Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, 23 February 2011

The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.

The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as “information operations” at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.

“My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave,” says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. “I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line.”

The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts.

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Learning to See in the Dark: The Roots of Ethical Resistance — Carol Gilligan Speaks at MIT

Advanced Cyber/IO, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Movies

VIDEO: Learning to See in the Dark: The Roots of Ethical Resistance  Carol Gilligan April 24, 2009 Time: 1:10:34

Carol Gilligan is an ethicist and psychologist currently appointed as a University Professor at the New York University. She received an A.B. in English literature from Swarthmore College, a masters degree in clinical psychology from Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University.   Her landmark book, In A Different Voice (1982) is described by Harvard University Press as “the little book that started a revolution.” Following In A Different Voice, she initiated the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development and co-authored or edited 5 books with her students: Mapping the Moral Domain (1988), Making Connections (1990), Women, Girls, and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance (1991), Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development, (1992) and Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationships (1995). She received a Senior Research Scholar award from the Spencer Foundation, a Grawemeyer Award for her contributions to education, a Heinz Award for her contributions to understanding the human condition and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans. Her more recent publications include The Birth of Pleasure: a New Map of Love (2002), Kyra: A Novel (2008), and, with David A. J. Richards, The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future (2009).

At Phi Beta Iota:

Review: Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women’s Thinking to Psychological Theory and Education

Review: The Deepening Darkness–Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy’s Future

1992 E3i: Ethics, Ecology, Evolution, & intelligence (An Alternative Paradigm)

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How Neocon Central Worked for Muammar Qadhafi

02 Diplomacy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

Among Libya's lobbyists

Laura Rozen, Politico, 21 February 2011

As several Libyan diplomats Monday denounced their country’s four-decade ruler Col. Muammar Qadhafi for unleashing the army against anti-government protesters, U.S. consultancies that have worked to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s U.S. image were laying low.

Several consulting, law and lobbying firms have moved in to advise the Libyan government and energy interests since U.S. sanctions were lifted on Libya in 2004, some of which have since canceled their contracts, according to Justice Department records.

Fahmy Hudome International canceled its contract with the Libyan government in 2007. The Livingston Group canceled its $360,000-per-year lobbying contract with the Libyan government as well as one with an associated Qadhafi charity in September 2009, following the hero’s welcome Libyan leaders gave for the convicted Lockerbie bomber upon his release in August 2009 from a Scottish prison on humanitarian grounds. Justice Department records indicate the law firm White & Case LLP has been registered since 2008 to represent Libya regarding a litigation matter.

One of the more unlikely figures to have advised a firm which has worked to burnish Libya's image and grow its economy is not registered with the Justice Department. Prominent neoconservative Richard Perle, the former Reagan-era Defense Department official and George W. Bush-era chairman of the Defense Policy Board, traveled to Libya twice in 2006 to meet with Qadhafi, and afterward briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on his visits, according to documents released by a Libyan opposition group in 2009.

Perle traveled to Libya as a paid adviser to the Monitor Group, a prestigious Boston-based consulting firm with close ties to leading professors at the Harvard Business School. The firm named Perle a senior adviser in 2006.

The Monitor Group described Perle’s travel to Libya and the recruitment of several other prominent thinkers and former officials to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s image in a series of documents obtained and released by a Libyan opposition group, the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition, in 2009.

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Phi Beta Iota: In fairness to the Neocons, there is no real difference between the two parties that vie for control of the public purse to favor private ends.  US Government support for dictators, criminal gangs, and selected terrorist groups has always been “bi-partisan” and completely devoid of any public benefit.

See Also:

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Diversity in Wholeness: “We were made different to complete each other…”

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

Two remarkable presentations of our common humanity and shared predicament showed up in my email today.  One is one of the most beautiful and intense videos I've ever seen and the other is a glimpse of the global spirit infusing the current uprisings in very diverse nations.

Blessings on our shared Journey…

Coheartedly,
Tom

============

1.  The Human Planet … A spectacular video trailer of the BBC's ONE

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=2HiUMlOz4UQ&vq=large

Its fast-paced images of the archetypal energies and challenges of human life on Earth are riveting!

==========

2.  From Cairo to Madison: Hope and Solidarity are Alive

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/21-11

by Medea Benjamin

==========

And a closing word for U.S.Americans, from Ralph Nader:

“In a country that has so many problems it doesn't deserve and so many solutions that it doesn't apply; all things are possible when people begin looking at themselves for the necessary power to produce a just society.”

______________________________

Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute, POB 493, Eugene, OR 97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org /  http://tom-atlee.posterous.com
Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY –  http://www.taoofdemocracy.com and
REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM – http://evolutionaryactivism.com
Please support our work.  Your donations are fully tax-deductible.
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Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail? + US Fraud RECAP

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Phi Beta Iota: With a tip of the hat to Rolling Stone and author Matt Taibbi, reproducing the entire article was the only way to show the emphasis added by Brother Chuck.  Updated to add photo and observe that this particular article is rocketing around the Internet.  See also our review of GRIFTOPIA.

UPDATE: Three comments from Facebook:

  • Robert Smith Socrates became disheartened. Machiavelli was on to something – power corrupts. I suspect that a true and totally transparent democracy of ideas and information are requisite groundwork for an enduring democracy.
  • Robert David Steele Vivas Transparency, truth, and trust. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both understood, Will Durant says it best (see my review of his Philosophy and the Social Problem)
  • Lynn Wheeler In the late 90s, got asked by NSCC (before they merged with DTC) to look at improving integrity of trading transactions (in part because had recently done something similar for payment transactions) … after putting some amount of work int…it was suspended. The comment was that a side-effect of improving the integrity would have also greatly increased transparency and visibility (which apparently is antithetical to trading culture … some x-over with recent RS article focusing on secrecy as a fraud-enabler).

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Financial crooks brought down the world's economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them

Matt Taibbi. Rolling Stone, 16 February 2011

Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer.

“Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail,” he said. “That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that.”

I put down my notebook. “Just that?”

“That's right,” he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. “Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there.”

Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.

This article appears in the March 3, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available now on newsstands and will appear in the online archive February 18.

Entire Piece with Emphasis from Chuck Spinney Below the Line